


smoke and ash

by gominee



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Implied Smut, M/M, MAMA Powers AU, Strangers to Lovers, fire related imagery, inspired by power, very whimsical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-04 20:56:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15155447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gominee/pseuds/gominee
Summary: There's no rest to be found, not anymore. No matter where Chanyeol sleeps or how many pills he takes to drug himself into drowsiness, light, burdened eyes haunt him; he imagines burning Jongin, surrounding him in flames, imagines leaving him in a fiery forest on the verge of collapse, imagines running fingers dark with char up the length of his body and tainting him with smoke and ash spread between kisses that singe.





	smoke and ash

Chanyeol meets him in a forest.

Smoke and ash flood his lungs, leave him helpless to waves of heat that roll relentlessly off of the trees around him; limbs crackle and threaten to fall, leaves burnt to nothing more than charred dust, and even so, it's momentarily peaceful. Every exhale brings puffs of smoke and fire that don't come from the world surrounding him. He melts into the ground and falls to his knees with eyes up to appreciate it—beyond the expanse of trees blurring together, he sees the moon and the stars, and he knows they're safe high up in the sky. 

He doesn't want them to be safe.

A rough yell rolls up from the back of his throat, and he sends fire as high as it'll go, flaring from his mouth and nostrils and the palms of his hands until his hair's frazzled and veins in his eyes nearly burst. The forest is susceptible to fire, flammable from the ground to the very tops of the trees, but everything in the sky is free from his wrath. He's cursed to live like this, cursed to destroy and burn and crumble, but no matter how high the flames go, they dissipate into thin air moments later and leave him the same smoggy view of the moon and the stars from before. 

A limb above Chanyeol breaks, and he hears it, sees it. He doesn't get a chance to step out of the way. He blinks around the smoke once, and he's fifteen feet in the air atop a strong limb that hasn't been licked by flames, cold hands on his wrists. He jerks and turns, scrambles back on the limb—a man with eyes singed by the fabric of time stares back at him, and Chanyeol feels frantic in trying to get away. 

He doesn't let go. Chanyeol yanks himself out of his grip and drops from the limb without a second thought; yet again, he's taken higher up in the trees before he can even hit the ground, and the same man fastens his hold on him so as to not let him leave.

"You're going to die out here," he says. The roar of fire is loud, but he's deaf to it in wake of whirling back around to look at the man behind him again. 

The world distorts. Chanyeol shuts his eyes when the smoke becomes too much, and when he opens them, the same man is before him. They're on top of a tall building with Gothic architecture, the same moon and stars still above them, and the man lets go of him as if he's been burnt himself.

Chanyeol sees pained eyes, and the man's gone before he can look anywhere else. Wisps of white smoke swirl around the missing image of his silhouette for moments afterward.

_We're one in the same_ , he thinks.

\--

Chanyeol meets him again in the city.

He stays on rooftops, sets fire to small things like houses and cars, spreads it out so he won't be caught. Between each act of arson, he smokes until his throat burns, and he returns to the same rooftop he'd been pulled to against his will once a day to see if he'll find the same man.

This time, luck favors him.

"Those are bad for you," a voice says, and Chanyeol doesn't have to turn around to know who it belongs to. He takes a longer drag of his cigarette and puffs it out of his mouth in gentle, harmless rings, fastens it back between his fingers while he moves to stand on the edge of the roof and turns his head. Pained eyes, windswept hair, black coat.

All he has to offer is a simple, "I know," before it's back in his mouth again. The man steps up next to him so they're sharing the same view that overlooks the city. Chanyeol idly wonders if he'd even bothered taking the stairs to get up here. What's the point of walking if you can teleport wherever you please?

"I'm Chanyeol," he offers when silence ensues. Perhaps he ought to thank the man beside him for saving his life—he wouldn't have minded losing it on that particular evening, but he still likes breathing smoke, still likes setting fire to pretty things. "Thanks for whatever you did the last time we met."

He doesn't get a response, so he tilts his head in the man's direction childishly and imploringly to urge him on. The man looks back at him, and he shows a smile that's far too youthful to be beneath a pair of eyes that're so old. "Jongin. You're welcome."

Chanyeol doesn't ask why Jongin had saved him because he doesn't need to know. Instead, he offers him a cigarette from the pack clutched in his other hand, and he's not surprised when it's waved away. 

"I love cities like these," Jongin says to no one in particular. Chanyeol looks at him, but pained eyes are focused on the horizon. "They're old, worn in their own unique ways... pretty. Every building tells a story. Scars on the walls, cracks in the foundation. There's an ambiance to places like these you don't find in modern cities. I like pretty things. I like pretty views."

Chanyeol stares for a moment longer before he does his best to follow Jongin's line of vision. He doesn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. His eyes are unfocused, like he's watching something Chanyeol can't see, and that pained look won't leave. "I like destroying pretty things," he unhelpfully supplies, tone light and chirpy. "It gives me a thrill, so... we're on the same wavelength."

Jongin turns back to him. "You don't have to destroy things," he tries, as if he's making a real attempt to change Chanyeol's mindset. "Fire is warmth. It doesn't have to blister."

"Fire chars everything it touches," Chanyeol says, widening his eyes at Jongin. "You think you'll feel warm if hold you down and burn you up?"

But Jongin smiles. He looks directly into Chanyeol's eyes for the first time, and Chanyeol feels weighty, powerless, nailed to the spot by crystalline pupils and irises that know too much. "You can't hurt me," Jongin returns. He reaches up and slides colds hands into Chanyeol's hair, messy and rough as it is, thumbs on his cheekbones, eyes boring into his. "But I can hurt you."

They fall.

Chanyeol feels wind beat against his back, and Jongin's got the same hold on him as they fall, lips parted and pupils dilated—like it's the most exhilarating thing in the world to him to be on the verge of death, no more than twenty seconds away from ground impact. The wind is loud and yet silence blurs his hearing, keeps him focused on the man just above him. Pained eyes are fierce and haughty in their translucent appearance, and Chanyeol can't look away, not even when he sees the edges of buildings whizz past them in his peripherals and hears the screams of onlookers. _I can hurt you_ , his demeanor says.

He shuts his eyes. When he opens them again, he's alone in a field, and white smoke swirls in the air around him.

\--

There's no rest to be found, not anymore. No matter where Chanyeol sleeps or how many pills he takes to drug himself into drowsiness, light, burdened eyes haunt him; he imagines burning Jongin, surrounding him in flames, imagines leaving him in a fiery forest on the verge of collapse, imagines running fingers dark with char up the length of his body and tainting him with smoke and ash spread between kisses that singe.

He finds a small amount of solace in a cheap hotel with a balcony view of a different city. Chanyeol smokes and smokes and smokes on the edge of it until the only thing he remembers to breathe is ash. There's nothing good to burn, nothing worth destroying, nothing to take the edge off of how lost he feels after being whipped around like a ragdoll by a man he barely even knows.

Chanyeol lets out a smoke-laden sigh and steps back inside. His pack's empty, and he's been simmered down to a state just beneath tense. Sleep's a decent option. 

"This place is really run-down," a voice from the corner says, and Chanyeol startles, banging his head on the bedside table after having been bent over to rifle through it in a lazy attempt to find something to read. He spins around in a flurry, already mildly annoyed, but seeing Jongin's toothy smile makes every ounce of malice he has crumble to dust. "You couldn't afford anything better than this?"

"I'd have more money if I hadn't lost my wallet in that experimental freefall of yours," he retorts, walking past Jongin to get to the small fridge on the other side of the room and lightly punching his shoulder as if he's an old friend. "What are you, anyways? A magician? You make people and things disappear whenever you feel like it?"

Jongin simpers, shoulders pulled into a shrug. "Maybe," he says. He's making himself comfortable on the edge of Chanyeol's rented bed, legs folded. He looks comfortable, too, dressed in a dark turtleneck and jeans. He always looks comfortable, sure of himself. Chanyeol likes it even though he shouldn't. "I don't really know what I am. I don't know what you are, either."

"A monster," Chanyeol offers, and his tone's light, playful, like he's so used to the notion of it that it doesn't even faze him anymore. He comes back with a bottle of cheap whiskey and pops it open while he sits down next to Jongin. "Someone that destroys everything he touches."

Jongin tacks on, "By choice," and gives a dismissive wave of his hand when Chanyeol offers the bottle to him. "I don't think you're a monster. I told you, fire is warmth. Even those forests you burn down grow up all over again. You've killed the old and brought up the new."

Chanyeol grimaces. He doesn't like Jongin's optimism; he sounds as if he's trying to find beauty and peace in everything, and Chanyeol doesn't have the patience for that. "I like ruining things. I don't do it for a good end result. I do it because it feels good, and I do it because it's the only thing I know how to do. It's..."

"Satisfying?" Jongin supplies.

The way Jongin says it sounds negative, but Chanyeol lays back against the bed and nods anyways. "Satisfying."

Jongin stays quiet, and when Chanyeol looks up, he sees him with that same lengthy, faraway glaze in his eyes as before—he's not watching anything Chanyeol can see with his own eyes, pupils mismatched and odd rather than clear and deep. The silence remains, and he enjoys it. He doesn't know Jongin, doesn't know a genuine thing about him, but he does know he's outside the realm of normalcy the same way Chanyeol is, and he knows Jongin's capable of a lot more than he's willing to let on.

"If you were to go somewhere," Jongin starts after minutes of silence, eyes still glassy, "one place, one part of the earth you've always wanted to be on, where would that be?"

Chanyeol doesn't know. He's been to enough places as it is from staying on the run, and he doesn't care much about scenery unless there's something there he can burn. Rather than giving a proper answer, he sits up, studying the way Jongin's body stays still even as the bed shifts. "Where would you go?"

Jongin laughs. "I've been everywhere." The glazed look disappears and he turns his head so he can look at Chanyeol. "There's nothing left for me to fantasize about."

"So take me to your favorite place," Chanyeol suggests. "If you've been everywhere, there's gotta be one place that you like the most, right?"

That makes the look in Jongin's eyes go a little bright rather than pained and hallowing, and his eyebrows twitch while he stares at Chanyeol. He looks like he wants to say something for the briefest of moments, but in the end, he only grasps Chanyeol's forearms and clings, cheek pressed against his while he whispers, "Close your eyes," into Chanyeol's ear as the world begins to distort. The sound of cars driving across city roads melds into white noise and is replaced by water rolling, pushing—crashing? 

Chanyeol opens his eyes again, and he's met with the sun setting before the ocean. There's no white smoke. He looks up, sitting against the sand, and Jongin's there, standing straight with his eyes directed at the water before them. Chanyeol stands up, too, stumbles once because of the give the sand has (and ignores the way Jongin quietly laughs) as he turns his own eyes out at the water.

"The beach?" he asks. "You've been everywhere in the world and this is your favorite place to go?"

"It's serene, and sometimes I dance here," Jongin answers, already taking Chanyeol by the hand and pulling him out further so that they're closer to where the tide gently rolls in. The scent of sea breeze is light and pleasant in the air, and Chanyeol stares at Jongin again. "I like it here. It makes me feel small."

Briefly, Chanyeol thinks it's suitable. Jongin is gentle lines and hard edges and glowing a fine, coppery gold beneath the sunset that makes him feel like he's witnessing something otherwordly. His jaw is sharp and his features are soft, and he turns when Chanyeol stares at him for a little bit too long, but Chanyeol doesn't look away.

"What are you?" is the first thing out of his mouth, and Jongin smiles, tips his head to the side, fringe bouncing with it. 

"A monster," Jongin mimics, taunting, and Chanyeol snorts, beyond amused. "Someone who manipulates time and space for his own benefit and nobody else's."

"I beg to differ." Chanyeol winds an arm around Jongin's waist, then, idly twirling the both of them around while his free hand finds one of Jongin's and clasps it gently. "Hanging out with me's been beneficial to me too, so you can't call yourself a monster, you tryhard. That's a title reserved for guys like me. You're too thought-provoking to be one."

Jongin, however, only laughs at both the reply he's given and whatever Chanyeol's in the middle of doing, settling a hand on his shoulder and twining his fingers with Chanyeol's. "And what exactly is this supposed to be? Your way of convincing me of that?"

"You said you like dancing out here," Chanyeol says, and he grins down at Jongin, lopsided and innocent in nature. "So I'm ballroom dancing with you to make the experience more viable."

Jongin likes it, too. Chanyeol watches him giggle and fuss over how they're not even in proper positions for something as formal as ballroom dancing, but Chanyeol only shushes him and tells him he's not being polite and formal by complaining so much—it makes him laugh harder, of course, clinging to Chanyeol for proper balance while trying to move his feet across the sand all the same. Chanyeol doesn't see a hint of the haunting look that's normally embedded deep in his eyes. Now, they're only a gentle, crystal blue that reflect the ocean when his eyes crinkle with a smile.

They get lost in it. Shoes get discarded, and Chanyeol does his best to obnoxiously spin Jongin a few times just to make Jongin playfully hit his chest and reset their positions. The sand is damp beneath their feet, and they make their way into the water until it touches their ankles and Jongin kicks some of it up at him to get him back for being spun around. It's only when the sun touches the water and rays bounce off of it that Chanyeol stops what he's doing to get a better view of the sunset. Jongin's surprised when he does, hand still clasped inside one of Chanyeol's.

"I didn't think you'd care about seeing something pretty like that," he says, gently swinging their twined hands between their bodies and watching Chanyeol through it all. He's seen the sunset over the ocean an infinite number of times already. It's beautiful, it's pretty, but it's something he's grown accustomed to witnessing. 

Chanyeol watches for a moment longer, and when his eyes start to burn, he pulls them away so he can look at Jongin instead. "I usually don't," comes his admission, complete with a small smile. "But this is something you like. I want the full experience."

Jongin huffs out a laugh of surprise and looks forward. Chanyeol knows he's not imagining the faint dusting of pink that spreads across the height of his cheekbones. "It's nothing special when you've seen it a thousand times." He looks back up at Chanyeol, then, eyes careful. "I don't really come out here for the view anymore."

The view before them isn't nearly as important as the view by his side, Chanyeol thinks. _I'm not here for the view either_ , he wants to say. He's there for Jongin, there to try and figure more of Jongin out. Jongin is breathtakingly captivating, lips parted, cheeks just a tad pink, and despite the striking blue tone of his eyes, everything about them is warm—he's warm, too. Jongin radiates the sort of warmth Chanyeol's always wanted to have.

Chanyeol kisses him. 

Maybe he doesn't know what he's doing, and he doesn't know what either of them are, but every press of Jongin's lips is sure and he doesn't dare miss the soft breath Jongin lets out when Chanyeol rolls his bottom lip between his own and dips his tongue across it gently. Cold hands twine in singed hair, and his own burning palms end up on Jongin's back, flames licking just beneath the surface and threatening to destroy something he finds pretty. 

Chanyeol sees Jongin's eyes turn hazy and glassy and light every time he pulls back for air, but it's not the lost kind of glassy he'd last seen in the hotel. It's warranted, welcomed, emphasized by the way he sucks on Jongin's tongue and traces the notches of his spine with his fingertips.

He doesn't have to open his eyes to know the world around them's distorting again. It hiccups once, twice, like Jongin can't focus well enough, but by the time Chanyeol pulls back with aching lungs and swollen lips, they're on a bed, and Jongin looks nothing less than pliant beneath him, pupils wide and irises thin. They kiss again, once more, countless times, and Chanyeol doesn't have time to wonder what they're doing, not when Jongin pulls on his hair and makes quiet sounds more beautiful than the angels' hymns. He thrives on impulse, takes what he wants, keeps Jongin pressed back into the bed for every bruising kiss that isn't placed on his lips and every graze of his teeth that stops moments before drawing blood. 

Jongin is malleable when Chanyeol takes him, fire-tainted fingers firm on his hips, traces of invisible marks of char and imprinted smoke following his palms wherever they go. Chanyeol breathes smoke with every exhale and inhales Jongin's moans the next second; his hands are warm, a welcome force on sun-kissed skin, and he melds their mouths back together and gives Jongin the same high of heat he's so used to being on. Flames boil his blood beneath his skin and demand him to destroy, ruin, make him fall apart, and he does it without so much as a single flicker of fire, obeying every _please_ and _more_ that Jongin cries while he rakes his nails down the back of his neck and keeps one hand wound up in Chanyeol's hair. 

Chanyeol fucks him with abandon atop silken sheets that're foreign to him until the sun rises again. Cooler rays spread warmth throughout the room when they settle, and Chanyeol watches Jongin, follows his breathing while he sleeps, takes in the way he glows a rosy gold underneath the sunrise and observes how much younger he looks when his eyes can't be seen.

It lulls him to sleep. Chanyeol dreams of being rescued from the same forest, the same fire, dreams of golden skin and sleepy eyes marked by pain and too much time spent on the earth, dreams of Jongin's voice in his ear and his moans on his tongue, dreams of crinkled smiles and warm laughs accompanied by wisps of white smoke.

When he wakes up, Jongin is gone, but there's a note on the edge of the bedside table with the faint scent of something familiar attached to it.

_It's your turn to find me, fire boy._

**Author's Note:**

> reposted from my old ao3. ♡


End file.
